Discussion on question by Mooz: How would people behave if society could vote to send people to a rubbish planet?

Stack Exchange

23:26

26

Q: How would people behave if society could vote to send people to a rubbish planet?

Let's say that due to some intricate societal laws and advanced technology, people were allowed to nominate someone for a "judgement". This person who is nominated, is usually someone who is terrible; the likes of people who trample on the less fortunate to have their way (in politics, business o...

society

Frostfyre

Well, I suspect anyone in national politics would be immediately nominated, simply because there's that many people who would vote against the person in the election. Plus all the autocrats and demagogues in the world. Basically, everyone in a leadership position. Goodbye society.

Thucydides

The people with the money and power will be voting people like you off the island, not the other way around. Like so many questions about changing society, the OP never considers the ultimate issue is "who decides" what is right, moral, good for society, the most useful trait etc. Look at the US elections and tell me that Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump would meet most normal definitions of "good", "useful", "productive", inspiring" or even "intelligent" (although they are intelligent enough in their specific realm).

Jan Dvorak

Think: Australia

Mooz

@Jan I am an Aussie :)

Steve Jessop

"you can't be nominated for that reason" -- you cannot stipulate that, because your process doesn't allow any such restriction to be enforced. Who evaluates the 1000 nominators and the seven billion voters to make sure that none of them are motivated by the murder? Judges and juries are not necessarily doing things for the right reasons, but a vote of the public certainly will not be limited to the "proper" grounds on which you think a decision should be made. Don't use public votes unless all motives are acceptable.

Cyrus

23:26

In the "Age of Outrage" and with the internet as enabler, 1000 nominations would be extremely easy to achieve, so basically anyone can and will be a target. Exile feuds would devolve into mass exiles of anyone daring to speak out. Down-voted my answer on SE? I'll get my 2000 FB friends to nominate you! It would be more restrained if someone has to risk their own hide and be judged against the nominee, with the loser being exiled.

user23614

I only vaguely remember it but Charles Platt wrote a book called Garbage World that covers some of this.

Jacobr365

A 1000 votes seems much to low. A catchy slogan on reddit or whatever can easily get 1000 to back your idea even if it is silly. Seems like a low number like that would allow huge amounts of corruption. IE Apple uses it's money to buy votes to exile its competitors entire engineering dept and boards.

called2voyage

Related: stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Hadante

DSKekaha

It's actually called "Double Jeopardy", not "double indemnity" Example: ( criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/double-jeopardy.html )

MonkeyZeus

I don't think this has been covered so how often is this nomination held? Is this some sort of spin off of GoFundMe called GoBanishMe and anyone/everyone is up for nomination at any time? How long does a nomination vote remain active? How long is the judgement period? If I vote against Carl today because his cat peed in my lawn then is that vote held indefinitely even if no one else votes on him within 10 years from now?

In addition to my previous comment, maybe they make a Tinder app where people just browse and left/right swipe to cast their vote?

A. I. Breveleri

23:26

Please don't do this. I used to live on a perfectly lovely planet where we had a law like you describe and then one day I copped a little attitude on the internet and the next thing I knew I was sent here.

njzk2

I can probably think of a hundred people I would nominate in a heartbeat. Most of those people would probably be nominated by a lot of people because they are famous. Getting enough decisions made is going to be a problem.

Mooz

Hi all, thanks for all of your responses. There are too many for me to answer quickly. First point: I've updated 'double-jeopardy'. Second point: you're all correct, 100 nominations is too few, so I've removed the hard set limit; the point isn't the number of nominations, more-so what happens afterward.

Additionally, this system would "weed-out" some deserving folk slowly, as it would be a "from now on" type of deal, after which people will start to behave in a more "tolerable" manner. Meaning that the politicians or business-people or people from any other field would hopefully take their actions a bit more seriously. So a WMD is hardly what I'm proposing here.

MolbOrg

If the person is deemed unworthy, then they are immediately transported to a harsh planet, which is basically a death sentence. - death sentence is literary here or it is just a place, where they can live outside of law of that society. So its intended to be a jail and punishment, or a other place. As example another country, space habitat where they can build their new society as they like it. Which tech level is acceptable for that, can be most of tech transferred on ssd drive, or is it possible for then have access to tech(I'm able to suggest such system). I see such system very viable.

Vld

I'll be that guy, then: I'm guessing that if that was enacted, then at some point the population of the (original) planet will be wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

Valorum

I rather suspect that settlers from Earth would arrange to be voted off in groups. Eventually all the good people would live on the new (terraformed and tamed) planet and all that would be left on Earth is 999 people terrified of any of them having babies.

Doktor J

23:26

I feel like you're doing a huge hand-wave, "Due to intricate systems, it is impossible to rig or bribe the votes/voters (voting is 100% honest and accurate)." -- preventing fraudulent voting (double-voting, using dead peoples' names, etc) can probably be safely handwaved, but how are you going to prevent people from bribing voters? "Hey, tell your friends if they vote for me I'll give them a one-year pass to my resort (or insert other compelling non-monetary bribe here)"

EvilSnack

The way to mitigate abuses (assuming that the voting is not rigged) is that persons who fail to vote are counted as opposing the banishment of the person under consideration.

Transcript for

Discussion on question by Mooz: How w…